When performing neurosurgical operations, e.g. in cerebral surgery, there is a grave problem with respect to removal of blood, secretions, etc. from the operative field, usually by suction, and to stop bleeding of the blood-vessels, to close the arteries referred to as coagulation, because the operative field is difficult and elaborate to reach, and because several kinds of surgical instruments have to be used alternately. Some of the instruments are connected to a high frequency power source; therefore the instruments must be electrically insulated in order to prevent "arcing" which may occur when two different instruments are present simultaneously, e.g. in the skull. Such instruments include the so-called bipolar forceps used to stop bleeding of the blood-vessels (coagulation). This important group of instruments comprises about 40 to 50 units of different forms, and it depends on the organ to be operated and on the nature of the operation which kind of instrument is used. When using the bipolar forceps, the electric circuit is closed and the end of the blood-vessel being pinched between the forceps is so to say "welded" by the high frequency current. Before introduction of the bipolar forceps, the suction probe has to be removed. It is disadvantageous that separate persons are needed to handle the suction instrument and the bipolar forceps. These latter have also the disadvantage that due to mechanical overstrain and to the everyday gas sterilization, they deteriorate, are damaged quickly and require time for replacement of the unusable forceps.
Suction instruments, as used today, are constructed as thin, rigid pipes made of a special metal or metal alloy, connected to the vacuum source of the operating room and operated by temporary opening and closing the vacuum--as needed. Their up-to-date types are available--at very high prices--in the form of sets comprising several pipes bent at different--predetermined--angles. They are able to perform only one funtion i.e. suctioning. A whole series of suction tubes with different bending angles are needed, as the more flexibly the suction tube or the series of suction tubes reach that area where the fluids super-fluous blood etc. have to be sucked from, the more reduced the operative field may be. The cost factors are even less favourable in the case of disposable suction tubes destined for a single application, while their value in use is not or at least not substantially better.